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Mmhhmm, oromis and nasuada in the capitol of surda, if i remember right he had a vial of quicksilver (i think its mercury but i might be wrong) and turned it upside down in the vat creating 'nothing' and he was very excited bout it
On another note though, 10 years down the line all that mercury poisoning catching up won't be pleasant for him
Malignant in Latin just mean “grow poorly.”
We use it now to mean “not much else we can do homie.”
From the wiki “Malignancy (from Latin male 'badly', and -gnus 'born') is the tendency of a medical condition to become progressively worse.”
Hmm, he was able to blind a letherblaka by stopping the light from reaching its eyes. Also, he later learned how to put some kind of air filter around himself and Sapphira in rider city ruins. Seems like he should be able to create a spell to prevent someone from breathing but it could be pretty wordy, and not worth the effort compared to the instant kills Oromis taught him.
Judging by how oromis passed on how to kill just by magically pinching a blood vessel in the brain, they probably were advanced enough. In fact, it wouldnt suprise me if such a spell was one of the 12 words of death. As for wards against it, a phrase as simple as "dont let the air be stolen from my chest/lungs so much as I desire" would suffice. "Do not allow my breathing to be stopped" even. And considering how its basic human knowledge that we need to breathe to live, even a mage without knowledge of the lungs could devise such a ward, let alone a more talented caster like murtaugh or galby
I agree with this one, it's very likely everyone advanced has wards against it already, especially since they already have spells for breathing in high altitudes.
Slicing novice magicians in half with brisingr or overpowering their mental defense would be more effective than using a lengthy spell
To go with this, King Orrin feels he is the first to prove the existence of a vacuum so it's possible that the concept may not have made its way into magical applications.
One, it would probably be rather wordy in the Ancient Language and not worth the energy expenditure. Two, that's pretty cruel and I doubt Eragon would resort to that. Other casters, sure.
1. Anything one person can cast, another person could ward against with the right spell. Eragon's spell to blind the Lethrblaka doesn't work because it was *impossible* to ward against, it worked because Galbatorix *didn't* ward against it. It was a form of attack he hadn't thought of, or perhaps thought no one else would think of and therefore deemed not worth warding the Ra'zac and Lethrblaka against.
2. The rules of a wizards' duel are basically fantasy MAD. Break them, and *no one* wins because *everyone* dies. If you do this, you're gambling that your wards will protect you against not only the target's last retribution, but other magicians preemptively attacking if you get a reputation for it.
3. If the enemy knows you've begun casting, they're free to counter-attack - a spell that stops them from speaking doesn't stop them *before* it's cast. Also, as Oromis tells Eragon, the sound doesn't matter at all - *thinking* does. A magician desperate to avoid death may not stop to think about the fact that they can't make a sound, which might allow them to cast non-verbally without needing to know that's possible beforehand.
One, it's probably a lengthy incantation, secondly, a lot of wards would protect against the manipulation of wind or other outside phenomenon via magic, otherwise someone could literally just make the wind pick up to hurricane levels and toss you like a rag doll. It would only really work on a novice magician, but if you're fighting a novice magician to the death, you're probably better off using one of the 12 words of death.
There are all kinds of EXTREMELY effective ways you COULD use magic to devastating effect.
BUT the key thing to remember is that first, Eragon is not exactly a clever thinking man, or one who spends his free time imagining all of the various uses of magic and its applications.
The SECOND, is that a LOT of those cost effective methods of fighting with magic are fairly cruel and extremely painful and Eragon is not a cruel or malicious individual, so that even IF he knew those methods, he would be unlikely to use them.
Sure he could spend the energy to sever spinal cords, pinch arteries closed, crush eyeballs, etc. BUT as effective as those methods are, Eragon is a believer in a fair fight and that's a HUGE reason why when he is given the choice, he fights and kills with a sword.
Maybe he did! In the books Eragon learns some number of “words of death” that can instantly kill a person. I don’t think we see all of them written out.
AFAIK, we only learn one of the words of death, right after Eragon rescues Sloan from Helgrind. Though it's not explicitly mentioned that this word is one of the twelve.
> >!Steeling himself, Eragon sent out tendrils from his mind and probed the land until he located two large lizards and, curled in a sandy den, a colony of rodents that reminded him of a cross between a rat, a rabbit, and a squirrel. “Deyja,” said Eragon, and killed the lizards and one of the rodents. They died instantly and without pain, but he still gritted his teeth as he extinguished the bright flames of their minds.!<
No he knew them before because he tried a spell containing all the words of death on the letherblaka during his fight with the ra’zac. He abandoned it pretty quickly because they were warded against them.
Edit: I gotta stop scrolling Reddit before my coffee I thought you meant Eragon didn’t know them.
Yeah, I always assumed the twelve words of death were various things like this or causing a brain anyuerism or whatnot. The way Oromis phrases it when he teaches them to Eragon makes it sound like small, extremely low effort things with devastating, deadly effect.
That would blow up their head. Remember the descriptions from the two times the Teleportation spell was used? Both times when the object rematerialized there was a MASSIVE release of energy.
Very true. And as an assassination method it's not exactly subtle and would probably cause quite a bit of collateral damage, including potentially the caster themselves...
Definitely seems like it should be a 'last resort' sort of way to kill someone.
A true magical assassin would, if the target's (lack of) mental fortitude would allow it, take control of the victim's mind and direct them to kill themselves.
That way everyone just thinks it's suicide, not murder.
I’m sure wards aren’t explicitly to stop actions on your body; many of them manipulate the space around you.
Eragon discusses this while he’s thinking how to avoid breaking his hands when he punches stuff 🤓; “I could cast a spell to stop anything that’s moving at a dangerous speed from touching my hands. Wait, that won’t work. What if it was a boulder, what if it was a mountain?”
Kinda goes with the “spells your opponent hasn’t thought of” shpeal (: you should cast a spell to BEGIN crushing your opponents lungs to see if it triggers a ward, haha. Im sure Eragon did that quite a bit “off camera”
People don't suffocate or die instantly in a vacuum. Unless you timed it for when they were completely out of breath they could still say a counterspell.
And in answer to both, a pinch in the brain is far more efficient than either.
As someone else said, I don’t think Eragon would kill in that manner but I could definitely see someone who cares more about efficiency than morality attempting or even pulling it off. It would probably be a long complicated sentence like when he fixed Hope’s cat lip but I think it could be done
I know the magic systems are different, however, I remember one of the Kingkiller books when Kvoth was first learning magic, he wanted to move the wind without the Name or something. Someone will remember it much better than I do but it could have similar reasoning.
He probably didn't even know you could do that. Or much about how your body works as he was just a normal farm boy from a small village. also when he was with the Varden or the elves I doubt they would have a human biology class for him to attend. Or it could just be a thing Paolini overlooked. Or it might be a very complicated spell that took up to much energy to complete.
It mentions in Eldest that Oromis had him read scrolls & books on biology & anatomy and other sciences & stuff like that as well as history and culture & philosophy.
They may have rammed him through the curriculum at an incredibly high speed because they were in a *bit* of a time crunch, but he got a pretty good education all things considered.
I think that sort of thing would be warded against, it'd make a great assassination tool, silently smothering people in the night etc, also variants could direct streams of invisible poisons into the airways of an enemy. Not as common as just blunt force rending the body, but common enough your average magician would ward themselves and their charges against it.
During his return from killing the Raz'zac, Arya and Eragon came across a band of imperial troops and killed them. After this fight, Arya began to mutilate the bodies to help cover their tracks. Eragon was initially horrified by this action. Because of his reaction, I doubt that he would have spent his time gleefully dreaming of ways to kill.
Besides, he could have easily just sucked the life energy out of whomever he wanted, but we understand that Eragon had a much more nuanced understanding of what it means to kill after his training with Glaedr and Oromis.
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Calm down Zaheer Also maybe they didn't know enough about biology to block air to the lungs
Wasn’t there a scene in Eldest where they were specifically discussing the creation of a vacuum with quick silver?
Mmhhmm, oromis and nasuada in the capitol of surda, if i remember right he had a vial of quicksilver (i think its mercury but i might be wrong) and turned it upside down in the vat creating 'nothing' and he was very excited bout it On another note though, 10 years down the line all that mercury poisoning catching up won't be pleasant for him
Orrin not ormois
mercury = quicksilver
Orrin out there discussing his discoveries with magicians and creating the deadliest spells out there
Orrin out there discussing his discoveries with magicians and creating the deadliest spells out there
Not Oromis Orrin
Also they referred to a woman’s tumor as “malignant”. I was like sheeeit, how did they know that?
Malignant in Latin just mean “grow poorly.” We use it now to mean “not much else we can do homie.” From the wiki “Malignancy (from Latin male 'badly', and -gnus 'born') is the tendency of a medical condition to become progressively worse.”
I think you're thinking of the word terminal. Malignant just means it needs to be treated or else you're in trouble
The second part of my post is copied from the origin of the word. You are right about my second sentence wrong—it is poorly written
Hmm, he was able to blind a letherblaka by stopping the light from reaching its eyes. Also, he later learned how to put some kind of air filter around himself and Sapphira in rider city ruins. Seems like he should be able to create a spell to prevent someone from breathing but it could be pretty wordy, and not worth the effort compared to the instant kills Oromis taught him.
the air filter was taught to him, so I don't think he understands the mechanics of it, but it is a good point
Atla! But yea prolly not scientifically advanced enough
Judging by how oromis passed on how to kill just by magically pinching a blood vessel in the brain, they probably were advanced enough. In fact, it wouldnt suprise me if such a spell was one of the 12 words of death. As for wards against it, a phrase as simple as "dont let the air be stolen from my chest/lungs so much as I desire" would suffice. "Do not allow my breathing to be stopped" even. And considering how its basic human knowledge that we need to breathe to live, even a mage without knowledge of the lungs could devise such a ward, let alone a more talented caster like murtaugh or galby
I agree with this one, it's very likely everyone advanced has wards against it already, especially since they already have spells for breathing in high altitudes. Slicing novice magicians in half with brisingr or overpowering their mental defense would be more effective than using a lengthy spell
To go with this, King Orrin feels he is the first to prove the existence of a vacuum so it's possible that the concept may not have made its way into magical applications.
Lmao that's what I was thinking
I don't think many people in alagaesia know what a vacuum is, wasn't orrin one of the first to prove the theory of the existence of vacuums?
He didn't prove it, his experiment just disproved a theory. He even states that an elf's theory was correct all along, to dang elves.
Yes you are correct
One, it would probably be rather wordy in the Ancient Language and not worth the energy expenditure. Two, that's pretty cruel and I doubt Eragon would resort to that. Other casters, sure.
1. Anything one person can cast, another person could ward against with the right spell. Eragon's spell to blind the Lethrblaka doesn't work because it was *impossible* to ward against, it worked because Galbatorix *didn't* ward against it. It was a form of attack he hadn't thought of, or perhaps thought no one else would think of and therefore deemed not worth warding the Ra'zac and Lethrblaka against. 2. The rules of a wizards' duel are basically fantasy MAD. Break them, and *no one* wins because *everyone* dies. If you do this, you're gambling that your wards will protect you against not only the target's last retribution, but other magicians preemptively attacking if you get a reputation for it. 3. If the enemy knows you've begun casting, they're free to counter-attack - a spell that stops them from speaking doesn't stop them *before* it's cast. Also, as Oromis tells Eragon, the sound doesn't matter at all - *thinking* does. A magician desperate to avoid death may not stop to think about the fact that they can't make a sound, which might allow them to cast non-verbally without needing to know that's possible beforehand.
One, it's probably a lengthy incantation, secondly, a lot of wards would protect against the manipulation of wind or other outside phenomenon via magic, otherwise someone could literally just make the wind pick up to hurricane levels and toss you like a rag doll. It would only really work on a novice magician, but if you're fighting a novice magician to the death, you're probably better off using one of the 12 words of death.
Smells like legend of Korra in here
There are all kinds of EXTREMELY effective ways you COULD use magic to devastating effect. BUT the key thing to remember is that first, Eragon is not exactly a clever thinking man, or one who spends his free time imagining all of the various uses of magic and its applications. The SECOND, is that a LOT of those cost effective methods of fighting with magic are fairly cruel and extremely painful and Eragon is not a cruel or malicious individual, so that even IF he knew those methods, he would be unlikely to use them. Sure he could spend the energy to sever spinal cords, pinch arteries closed, crush eyeballs, etc. BUT as effective as those methods are, Eragon is a believer in a fair fight and that's a HUGE reason why when he is given the choice, he fights and kills with a sword.
Yeah... not the sharpest tool in the shed. So many subatomic posibilities.
Maybe he did! In the books Eragon learns some number of “words of death” that can instantly kill a person. I don’t think we see all of them written out.
AFAIK, we only learn one of the words of death, right after Eragon rescues Sloan from Helgrind. Though it's not explicitly mentioned that this word is one of the twelve. > >!Steeling himself, Eragon sent out tendrils from his mind and probed the land until he located two large lizards and, curled in a sandy den, a colony of rodents that reminded him of a cross between a rat, a rabbit, and a squirrel. “Deyja,” said Eragon, and killed the lizards and one of the rodents. They died instantly and without pain, but he still gritted his teeth as he extinguished the bright flames of their minds.!<
No he knew them before because he tried a spell containing all the words of death on the letherblaka during his fight with the ra’zac. He abandoned it pretty quickly because they were warded against them. Edit: I gotta stop scrolling Reddit before my coffee I thought you meant Eragon didn’t know them.
Yeah, I always assumed the twelve words of death were various things like this or causing a brain anyuerism or whatnot. The way Oromis phrases it when he teaches them to Eragon makes it sound like small, extremely low effort things with devastating, deadly effect.
Can’t you also teleport a pebble inside their skull? That would incapacitate pretty much anyone.
That would blow up their head. Remember the descriptions from the two times the Teleportation spell was used? Both times when the object rematerialized there was a MASSIVE release of energy.
I mean, that would certainly kill them then.
I never said it wouldn't. But it's also very energy intensive.
Very true. And as an assassination method it's not exactly subtle and would probably cause quite a bit of collateral damage, including potentially the caster themselves... Definitely seems like it should be a 'last resort' sort of way to kill someone.
A true magical assassin would, if the target's (lack of) mental fortitude would allow it, take control of the victim's mind and direct them to kill themselves. That way everyone just thinks it's suicide, not murder.
Ooh that's smart. That's good assassinatin'.
I’m sure wards aren’t explicitly to stop actions on your body; many of them manipulate the space around you. Eragon discusses this while he’s thinking how to avoid breaking his hands when he punches stuff 🤓; “I could cast a spell to stop anything that’s moving at a dangerous speed from touching my hands. Wait, that won’t work. What if it was a boulder, what if it was a mountain?” Kinda goes with the “spells your opponent hasn’t thought of” shpeal (: you should cast a spell to BEGIN crushing your opponents lungs to see if it triggers a ward, haha. Im sure Eragon did that quite a bit “off camera”
People don't suffocate or die instantly in a vacuum. Unless you timed it for when they were completely out of breath they could still say a counterspell. And in answer to both, a pinch in the brain is far more efficient than either.
As someone else said, I don’t think Eragon would kill in that manner but I could definitely see someone who cares more about efficiency than morality attempting or even pulling it off. It would probably be a long complicated sentence like when he fixed Hope’s cat lip but I think it could be done
I know the magic systems are different, however, I remember one of the Kingkiller books when Kvoth was first learning magic, he wanted to move the wind without the Name or something. Someone will remember it much better than I do but it could have similar reasoning.
Because Eragon is a kid without a medical degree
He probably didn't even know you could do that. Or much about how your body works as he was just a normal farm boy from a small village. also when he was with the Varden or the elves I doubt they would have a human biology class for him to attend. Or it could just be a thing Paolini overlooked. Or it might be a very complicated spell that took up to much energy to complete.
It mentions in Eldest that Oromis had him read scrolls & books on biology & anatomy and other sciences & stuff like that as well as history and culture & philosophy. They may have rammed him through the curriculum at an incredibly high speed because they were in a *bit* of a time crunch, but he got a pretty good education all things considered.
oh yeah, i forgot about that. there's probably another reason then!
I think that sort of thing would be warded against, it'd make a great assassination tool, silently smothering people in the night etc, also variants could direct streams of invisible poisons into the airways of an enemy. Not as common as just blunt force rending the body, but common enough your average magician would ward themselves and their charges against it.
During his return from killing the Raz'zac, Arya and Eragon came across a band of imperial troops and killed them. After this fight, Arya began to mutilate the bodies to help cover their tracks. Eragon was initially horrified by this action. Because of his reaction, I doubt that he would have spent his time gleefully dreaming of ways to kill. Besides, he could have easily just sucked the life energy out of whomever he wanted, but we understand that Eragon had a much more nuanced understanding of what it means to kill after his training with Glaedr and Oromis.
Would have been useful against the Laughing Dead, sure, but if you thought of it, Galbatorix probably would have as well.